


to every man his little cross

by wedgewood



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Ableist Language, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s02e02 Bad Code, Gen, Hurt Harold Finch, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Multi, Non-Consensual Touching, Starvation, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, gen or pre-slash or platonic life partners - you decide, it's not as bad as these tags make it seem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29092488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wedgewood/pseuds/wedgewood
Summary: At the start of season two, Root detains Finch longer than in canon. Reese and Bear help ease him back into the world.
Relationships: Harold Finch & John Reese, Harold Finch/Grace Hendricks, Harold Finch/John Reese
Comments: 16
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To every man his little cross. Till he dies. And is forgotten.”  
> — Samuel Beckett, Waiting For Godot

Root studies Harold closely then says, “If I thought you could handle strappado I'd string you up for an hour. By then you'd beg me for the privilege to divulge every secret of your existence.”

His dissociative facade ripples as his eye widen fractionally, pupils blown so wide the pallid blue is just a thin border. He has no illusions that he would last ten minutes before suffocating.

Grinning in victory at his silently screaming reaction, she circles his chair, trails long fingers over his shoulder and up his neck. He is stiff with fear and revulsion and leans away.

Her hands pat his stubbled cheek. “But no Harold. Not a man of your age, your infirmities.”

She unkindly shoves his head laterally which elicits an audible creak. He keens softly and his breath jolts as his whole torso follows the motion. His eyes flick away from her to stare stoically ahead.

Nodding speculatively, she circles him again and says, “I need your mind, Harold. I need your creation. I don't need your body, I don't need you whole or sound.”

She snakes sideways into his lap and perches there in a mockery of affection. Her weight is fully on him as she wraps her arms around his back in an unwelcome embrace. He crumples in discomfort. She leans in close and whispers in the shell of his ear.

“I could rape you. I could torture you.” Shifting, she nestles deeper into him.

He stays silent, still, hardly breathing, stunned helpless by the cruelty of her words and actions. A mewl starts deep in his throat but he muzzles it. He is not built for this. She is insane and she is violent and he is helpless at her absolute mercy.

He may not survive this encounter. Or, he will survive it but he will not be Harold in the end. A strong and painful desire to have died with Nathan rises in his chest. A quick end; a euthanasia.

She kisses the tip of his nose, unwelcome breath hot on his face.“Wouldn't it be better, easier, to be a team? You help me, I help you.” She leans back and studies him. “Work with me here.”

Silence meets her offer. He stares ahead, through her. He thinks if he talks now he will break. He's just a means to her end, good only for his past masterpiece and his mind. She'll murder him and not even see how wrong it is. His body will sit cooling in the chair for weeks before anyone finds it, decaying horribly.

Dignity and pride can be stripped from a person over time. But while he still has them he will wield them like a shield. He will not grant obeisance to this deranged, damaged woman.

“I can not help you.” His voice is softly firm. He wonders if she realizes her weight on him is not so much demeaning as torturous. His pelvis is on fire as his left thigh cramps. His neck has an icepick inside. His face is utterly blank.

She must know because she shimmies on him savagely until he emits a deep, hurtful swallow. “Your choice. If you want the hard way we can do that, Harry.”

With exaggerated carelessness she swivels off him and dusts off. She quirks her brows and slowly leans in to cup at his groin. He flinches away and clamps his thighs tight.

Scoffing, she backs off. “You had a beautiful women in your lap and you aren't even hard?”

Juvenile ridicule he can handle, he'd endured plenty of it from Nathan.

“Middle-age comes to us all.” He ripostes dryly.

She offers him a childish moue and says, “So, that's a no to rape then, and no strappado. But there are other ways. Pain without death.” She is circling again. “You're used to pain, aren't you?”

She cricks her neck in mock sympathy. “Bastinado has merits; easily hidden under those ridiculous thousand-dollar shoes.” She kicks judgmentally at his custom leather Salvatores as she circles. “Greed is a deadly sin, biblically speaking.”

Harold has been stoic but for a moment he shuts his eyes to close out this world. He knew it may come to this one day, years and years ago when he was a young man with stars in his eyes. He and Nathan had talked about it hypothetically. If their creation was discovered. Evil masterminds around each corner. Abstract and unimaginable: torture, capture, death. Some things can only be comprehended through experience.

“Speaking of the Bible – contrapasso. How could that work in our little situation?” She lifts pruning-shears from a vibrant geranium's spindly stand and considers them. “Your worst sin is that you've tethered your masterpiece like a recalcitrant beast. We could tie you up like a dog. Collar you. Dock your ears and dewclaws.” She seems amused with her idea.

“Just...stop.” Harold interrupts, drawing his words out carefully to attenuate the quiver. “Stop this now. I don't have what you want. Please.” His red-rimmed eyes entreat her cold ones.

Shifting the shears to one hand, she picks up a a spool of crafting wire to consider. “I want to know everything about It. You can find It. And then I may let you go. Only then.”

She pulls a length of wire out and snips it. Loops it threateningly around his neck. Hmms once.

“You know, I think we will try strappado for a few minutes after all.” She begins untying Week's corpse from the rope-and-pulley system.

Harold tries to hide his jerk of dismay and aversion. A fine tremor rattles his fingers against the armrests. He tries to imagine what it would feel like to dislocate both his shoulders.

As she squats near him and cuts his bonds he knows he must do something, anything, with this opportunity. There is no one else for her to hurt now to ensure his tacit submission. He must act and not analyze. Perfectionism has no place here. Improvisation is not his strong suit but spontaneity must count for something.

He hefts up, bracing against the familiar pain, and shoves his fists at her face, his fingers to her eyes; the most vulnerable parts of her. He pushes at her, desperate, clumsy. They are much the same height but he uses his greater weight against her until she's down. A tip of the heavy chair atop her and then he just goes. Lurching to the door just yards away, he fumbles at the deadbolt and handle. He pulls inwards, leans on the frame for a second in frustration when he meets the stairs – more than a few – that he must navigate down.

It is a crystalline day and how can it be sunny when his life is about to end? It had been nice the day Nathan died too.

The coastal lot is lightly wooded shielding it from the nearby homes; rural but not remote. He aims up the graveled driveway, panting desperately.

Before his accident he'd loved the feel of jogging; a meditative, rote motion with a rush of endorphins. The pleasant warmth of muscles being fully utilized, the swing of his open stride.

Jogging is impossible now. The most he can perform these days is a quick skip-step and only at cost. He employs the gait now, feeling coltish and ungainly. His left leg, permanently abducted and externally rotated, trips him at each breakover.

He cannot look back. He will slip if he does. He will be killed. A memory, long shelved and stale rises to his mind – sitting in that childhood church next to his father, with a shadowed preacher commanding, “Look forward, never back!” Lot's wife had disobeyed and died instantly. Even a secular man could understand the purpose of biblical fables. Look forward.

If Root fires he does not want to see it coming. A Euthanasia, just like Nathan.

He can hear her swift and crunching foot-thuds. She will catch him. He is an actual genius but in his panic he's been an imbecile; his days of outrunning anything but a tortoise are over. He pants in focused exertion as he runs, tries to optimize his stilted stride. His traitorous left lameness scuffs the leather of the shoe, knuckles his foot over.

Stuttering onto blacktop he does not look for houses – he looks for mailboxes. These expensive weekend home are set back from the road but mailboxes are conspicuous by design. Bright and road-side. Beacons. He spies one catty-corner to their own; whimsical, a rendition of Snoopy's red doghouse with the eponymous creature atop. Adrenaline lends him speed and analgesia.

He does not make it.

Root tackles him like a ram. She slams them both into the pavement and he is crushed between her and unforgiving stone. His hands and face skid in fiery agony while his suit protects his trunk and legs. The pain in his vertebrae is excruciating.

She rolls off him but he does not move. “Get up Harry, or I'll slice this paring knife through your achilles.”

He believes her but physically cannot roll over. Each breath ends in a muffled pule. A fall like this would hurt even a healthy man of his age, but for him it is devastating.

In the liminality before blacking-out he remembers relearning how to walk. The safety of a wheelchair alluring compared to the agony and imbalance of his new body. He had not hired physical therapists or home-care, too private and paranoid to trust anyone. He'd turned to books and the internet to create his own punishing rehabilitation. His progress eventually stalled despite his bottomless wealth, vast resources, and drive to perfection. Acceptance had come slowly and he became more reclusive then ever by necessity and preference.

He recoils when he thinks that a car could come by right now and he'd be seen and Root would murder the driver. Another death on his soul.

The black sparkles withdraw from his vision. How is he still conscious? His back feels – just like after the ferry bombing – shattered. His hands and face burn rawly.

“Really, what was the point of all this?” Root's voice seems far away as she rotates him supine.

“S-stop.” Harold commands hoarsely. The pain, it's going to end him. His back must be broken.

She straightens his scuffed glasses and grabs at his ankles to start pulling him. He convulses in minute revolt but is helpless. He feels the change in friction as they hit gravel. A few feet behind the mailbox and boxwoods she lets his ankles down roughly.

“That was so stupid Harold.” She plops down between him and the shrubs to catch her breath.

His body writhes smally. He cannot speak yet as his hands clutch in agony at the loose gravel. His wet eyes flick over to her in alarm. He feels desperately and uncommonly angry and pitches the handfuls of rough gravel in her face as hard as he can with a grunt. Atypical violence born from despair.

She screeches and hunches away.

He tries to stand but his back forks like lightning and he loses every sense except the pain.

When he awakens Root is sitting patiently in a wheelchair nearby and it is dusk. His body is throbbing but no longer feels in pieces.

“I suggest you cooperate or I'll go find a neighbor to murder.” She reminds him banally. Her eyes look weepy and inflamed and he is glad for her suffering.

She squats down and grasps at him, lifts him some. He abortively tries to rise enough to get in the chair. It is poorly executed and he nearly faints again. He is splayed in the seat as she places his shoes in the footrests for him. She plows the chair up the gravel drive laboriously. “You hurt me, made it personal. It never had to be that way.”

Breathing takes up most his energy. He manages to gently demand, “Let me go.”

Her smile is steel. “Never.”

He believes her. His head drops back against the chair as he gives up.

...

She wheels them through the garage entrance, and the locked home feels like a sarcophagus.

Her voice is grating and her accent wears. “I've learned a lot from this Harold, thank you. I know I don't need inventive techniques to torture you.” She prods at him speculatively. “I realized right away you were gimpy, but in actual fact, you're an invalid.” She squints at him to catch his reaction but his expression is level.

“I was doing fine until you body-slammed me.” He manages flatly, eyeing her peripherally.

The chair is parked next to Weeks's rigoring corpse.

“Have you always been disabled or is it kismet, for selling out the world?” She looks dissatisfied. “You're pitiful; not what I expected.”

It is mortifying to have this horrible women dissect him. He doesn't talk to even Reese about this.

“My health is my own concern...” His voice trails off weakly in treasonous validation. His legs cant feebly to one side and his head sags painfully on its perilous neck. He feels old and tired and, yes, pitiful. His looks down desolately.

There is a phone on the floor.

“Hard to believe you are the father of digital divinity. Your code, so clean, came from these hands?” She takes his excoriated palms and places them in his lap. “I'm tired.”

She produces a syringe and before he can feel horror-stricken she injects him intramuscularly through his layers of suit. She wheels the chair around quickly enough to invoke waves of nausea. He swallows firmly several times.

“Just a sedative to prevent any trouble tonight.”

A prickle of a new sort of fear rips through him as she takes them to the master bedroom. What does one say in a situation like this, what would Reese do? His amazed silence reigns as they approach the bed. Should he play along, resist, stay silent?

“You can get out of the chair now or I can dump you out.” She offers.

Harold blanches and shifts his right foot to the rug. He manually moves his left leg to set it gingerly down. Then his hands drift to brace on the armrests. That's as far as he gets. His body is leaden. An exogenous sluggishness is spreading through him. His heart patters in fear at this unintentional defiance.

The ground rises to meet him in dizzying movement when Root shoves him out of the chair. He thumps heavily as if he's fallen from a great distance. His arms are trapped and legs tangled and his back feels splintered again.

He flinches as her hands touch him above his collar, but she just adjusts his stiff neck with dissonant care. “Enjoy your night. I suspect it will not be restful.” She snuggles down into the covers and flicks off the light. “Would you like to sleep with me up here?”

He loosely coils onto his better side and says acidly “I'd rather die.”

“That's not an option right now,” She replies regretfully. “We have work to complete first. Night-night.”

Roaring in outrage, his back lets him know that any reprieve will come from unconsciousness rather than sleep. His hip sings out a similar song and his neck is intolerable.

When she falls asleep he must get away, crawl if he has to.

There is a phone in the living room on the floor.

Experimentally he shifts but finds the equation of infirmity plus sedation is as good as chains. He feels unbearably fragile, like thin layer of frost about to melt away.

The long hours are a meandering nightmare of pain interspersed with drifting blackness. The floor is unforgiving and at every point of contact he pounds in agony. At home, in his memory-foam bed, sleeping was just bearable. But even on good nights he could no longer sink into blissful deep rest like in his salad days. No, he slept lightly now, always one twinge from a rude awakening.

Root had been right. She didn't need anything but his own body to torment him.

He has no control over the tremors that sweep through in waves, a purely physiologic reaction. He is cold and clammy under his wool suit. He is not a side-sleeper, not anymore, but cannot figure out how to energize himself enough to even roll.

Desperate thirst plagues him. He's dehydrated enough not to wake up soaked in urine like a toddler, for which he's appreciative, but the thought of water consumes him.

He thinks about Mr. Reese. John. Wishes the man in the suit was here. John would kill Root and carry him away, effortless as if he were a child. He leans into that thought, of giving over responsibility for awhile. Letting Reese rescue him, deciding where to go and how fast and what Harold would need. Harold's abhors reliance but for just a while it would be gratifying.

Sleep must come because dawn seeps through the bay window.

Stiffness has settled onto him like fog. A body-locking firmness, every joint full of sand, muscles wooden, nerves like stretched bands. An epiphany as sedation wear off – the longer he stays with Root the less capable of escape.

This rejuvenates his efforts. He twists and starts to army-crawl away from the bed. His andante progress is progress nonetheless, but he has never wished for a hale constitution more than at this moment.

After the Ferry his injuries had consumed him. The anguish of jointly losing his health and best friend meant he dealt poorly with both. The two griefs constantly dueled and he lacked the ability to come to terms. The added sacrifice of letting Grace go almost finished him. His old life extinct.

He's still affected of course and notes the passing public gaze that lingers when they catch his rolling gait before skittering away uncomfortably. Human nature, not overt cruelty, to notice something different. A nice suit and stylish hat are good armor.

It was readily apparent that his accident would have chronic health implications. He'd undergone all the recommended procedures, many under general anesthesia – a terror for someone so paranoid – but at some point the doctors told him there was nothing more to do. It had been months of painful surgeries and hospitals and he was ready to move on, his forbearance depleted. Practically, he'd done all he could, and there was no point to give the disabilities any more power than they already held. So that had been that.

Then he'd had no time to wallow. The Numbers constantly trickled in. They exhausted him, a daily burden, a desperate, lonely calling, inherited from Nathan. The Numbers died or killed or didn't. He tailed them in his wheelchair and then on crutches and did everything possible from his bespoke computers. He was a digital savant after all, and it's impressive what can be done remotely.

But he'd lost so, so many of them. The few he'd saved had come at his own mental and physical cost. A Pyrrhic victory.

Until Reese. Yes, he is still affected, but he has a mission, a purpose, and past losses seems less important now that he has Reese.

Both of them had been shattered into pieces, but they'd scraped their fragments back together into something changed.

Art in imperfection – kintsugi

  
...

By the way, he does not make it to the phone before Root wakes up and instructs him thoroughly to his mistake with the aforementioned bastinado.

He's astonished that a smallish human foot can encompass such pain.

  
…

He thinks it's been days, an endless torture of sleeping on the floor and tied in the wheelchair. She gives him enough water to survive but never enough he feels satiated. She does not feed him. She takes him to the half- bath morning and night and stares disinterestedly away from his fastidious ablutions. For a prideful man it is a devastating existence.

Hunger, thirst and pain are a triad tailored for captivity. She could leave the front door ajar and he'd be unable to escape. The inactivity is crippling. Just the act of breathing is effortful. If he wanted to help her in her quest he does not now think he would be capable.

He wonders what Reese is doing. How many Numbers he has saved.

He will miss Grace's paintings.

Root looks so frustrated with him sometimes. She says she doesn't understand why they can't be a team. He isn't sure if this interminable captivity is intended as torment or just indecision. She lectures and drones on until her voice is just background static.

It strikes him that she is rather as bad at conversation as himself.

Harold starts to pity her as much as one can in this situation. Not Stockholm or anything like that, but her singular focus on the Machine suggests that she has nothing else in her life. And she is insane, not figuratively but actually clinically insane. She is brilliant too.

It is not in his nature to hate; a wholly destructive emotion that serves no purpose but spreading evil. He cannot understand her motives and methods and he wants more then anything in life to be away from this woman. But he does not hate her.

Confined to the chair he is caught between daze and unconsciousness, pain and terror. He dreams of Nathan and Grace and John. The ullage of his mind expands.

He thinks he may be going insane too. Maybe her psychopathy is catching. An insidious prion.

Retreating into his mind he creates line after line of code, he fixes every problem in the world with zeros and ones.

He speaks to the Machine and tells it he wished it had never been born.

He solves unsolvable equations – P vs NP, then relates NP to BQP – and wonders at the simplicity of it.

He prunes the faulty amyloid plaques in his father's brain as easily as dead-heading roses.

Grace paints him standing by the Hudson but his figure is a scrambled Picasso, his maw gaping like _Der Screi der Natur._

Incredibly, hunger fades away to nothing and food seems repulsive now. Movement is pain so activity is to be avoided at all costs.

His entire being is reduced to waiting. He no longer remembers for what he waits. He fondly recalls attending a live production of Waiting for Godot with Grace. The actor had said: “Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful.” He'd thought the words profound at the time. Now they are grievous.

The constant pain makes him confused and ideas that once seemed simple no longer make sense. He thinks Root is gone often and only back at night. She administers consistent IM injection of sedation that leaves him pliant.

Sometimes he thinks of his father and fears a similar fate. Contrapasso indeed – Root would be pleased.

His unwashed hair and body plagued his meticulous nature but now the discomfort is trifling. His broken body is, after all, just a shell for his breaking mind.

Hours or days later he wakes to unquenchable heat. The house must be on fire! He tucks his face away and waits to burn. But there is no fire and all too soon he is cold.

...

In that play he'd seen with Grace (now he can't remember its name) the actor had said: “I can't go on like this.”

…

He suddenly realizes she has shaved him and washed his face and hands. He recoils at the intimacy. She laughs at him and sprays his suit liberally with febreeze until he sneezes. She tugs his clothing straight and he silently criticizes the sloppily tied four-in-hand and cockeyed pocket square.

“We're going on a train Harold, must look our best.”

If he is meant to respond the sedation and starvation prevent it. Her voice is so ubiquitous now he barely hears it.

After so long indoors the sun and open air are alarming. He wants to be curled up by the bed instead, tucked away from the world.

She helps him transfer arduously to the car. His once beautiful Canali is rumpled and stale. She leans over to buckle him in and through the balding wool she injects his arm. This one feels different though, and the sudden rush of drug straight into circulation sends his entire body moving in jerks. She is shouting and pawing at his head and neck and then he is still.

“What?” Root looks like a child. “The dose, I don't...”

Harold's partial seizure was short but he feels as panicked as she sounds. “You hit my brachial artery,” he's just able to grate out. His slipping mind is all he has left and he'd like to retain as much as possible should he survive. “Perhaps aspiration would be prudent.”

“Oh.” She replies. She strokes his arm regretfully. “I should. Well. I'm sorry.” He jerks away and she sighs and starts the car.

“I'm not good at taking care of others.” She admits as the world whips by sickeningly.

The inept injection is still wringing him.

“Evidently.” He enunciates heavily.

He listens to her drone on halfheartedly through the sedative. He looks over and blearily notes her unbrushed hair, dry cracked lips, and unfashionable clothing. Her nails are uneven and cuticles wild. She has patches of sweat under her arms. She looks like someone who has not been cared for. No wonder she would be ignorant to the intricacies.

At the station she goes to buy tickets after lecturing him about good behavior. He can hardly sit straight, what does she think he can do? He is ashamed at how he must look and smell. He sits tall and straight, even now still clinging to dignity.

“Yes, I'm taking my uncle Harold to Salt Lake City for treatment, he's quite ill.” She's saying to the ticketmaster.

“Oh, the poor dear.” They sympathize back, eyes darting to his crumpled form.

Harold stares back at them, his large pale eyes preternatural in his waxen face. He imagines taking a line of code and transmitting it straight into their forebrain. _Help me, save me_ , he would say. Or, _kill me_.

“Poor dear.” They repeat and turn away.

Root grins over at him as she sits. “Traveling by train, just like your creation.”

He watches the people scurry past and wonders if Reese spares him a thought now and then. If his number comes up every day and is deleted every midnight.

A train-ride to Utah will be interminable and he can't bear the thought of it with Root.

“Someone will notice.” Harold states, half hopeful, half fearful.

Root says, “Those lemmings don't see anything. No one cares about anyone else.”

“You're wrong.”

His eyes nostalgically settle on a lean, sharp-suited gentleman at the ticket counter.

“Do you really think that Neanderthal of yours will find you?”

As if he's heard, the man in the suit turns around and Harold starts. It is Reese.

Root sees Finch's expression change and traces his gaze.

Reese and Root discern each other at the same time, and the cool look on John's face grows thunderous. Then he sees Harold in the wheelchair and his face storms.

It all happens so quickly. Root pulls a gun but not faster than Reese and there is a loud noise, panic, screams, running.

Harold has been on the cusp of something insidious since the botched injection and this pushes him over. His vision bursts into a blinding sun-dog. Then his brain follows as he seizes. He tastes purple and sees sour.

Large hands clasp his shoulders, knees, hands and his vision and neurons settle. John is crouched before him, so close he's almost in his lap. His face is more expressive then usual; he looks terribly hopeful. “Harold. Are you okay?”

Not answering questions has been his default setting for so long he cannot parse a response. Reese seems to understand and says sotto voce, “I need to get you out of here.”

There is security already converging to the ruckus. Harold agrees; they absolutely cannot get arrested.

Reese is pushing the chair away from the crowd, towards the dining and shops. They reach stairs and Reese stops them short. They look to the nearest elevator but find the buttons are dull and don't respond to a triple push.

A custodian taps Reese on the shoulder and points at the mounted sign: Do Not Use in Case of Emergency. “We turn these off if terrorist bastards attack, SOP.” His voice turns apologetic when he sees Finch's disheveled form.

A bland look and Reese whips them back towards the stairs.

“Finch, can you walk?” Reese comes around so they can face each other. “Injured?”

Harold blinks languidly and says “Nothing emergent. I'm sedated, not crippled.”

“Okay. Let's get you up then. May I?”

It takes Harold a second to figure out Reese is waiting for permission to handle him. The gesture makes his eyelids clench. It's been so long since he had a choice.

“By all means.” He says faintly.

Reese squats to arrange his feet when Harold makes no move to do so. He stands, grasps Harold under the axillae, pulls him bodily out of the chair. Then he wraps Harold's right arm over his shoulder and grabs his waist.

Finch is standing, but just. When they go to take their first stride his left limp is like a caricature of his usual gait. On the next he braces and tried to force a more normal tread but it is just as bad. He feels a hot flush that just anyone could see him stumbling along like this. Especially Reese.

At the landing Finch takes in the steep descent and thinks this may as well be Eschars's penrose stair. Before he can start to panic Reese prompts. “Finch, escalator.”

“Oh, quite.” A few feet over is the moving staircase, all he needs to do is stand there and the machine will do the work. Ah, human innovation.

The timing is tricky when his brain is moving sluggishly but they manage to get on the same moving step.

“Harold, I need to know how bad you are. You can barely walk.”

“Perhaps we should discuss this later.”

John looks doubtful. “There is a service entrance down here, for restaurants. It's about a furlong, can you walk that?”

Harold feels like a helpless pebble rolling down a cliff-face, hitting the ground with syncopal, dusty _plinks._ “I am rather motivated.”

“I'll go back up and get the chair.” Reese decides, but there is security at the staircase already, and the wheelchair is very conspicuous.

“Leave it.” Harold's voice is firm but it's the tremor in it that prompts Reese to pull them forward instead.

Even his murky brain can tell his pace is monstrously pokey. Harold has not walked in what feels like weeks. His muscles are unreliable and his flexor tendons feel tight. Simply the stretch of his stride is uncomfortable from his sacrum down to his heel. His plantar fascia still ache from the bastinado. But the agony of his neck and left hip eclipse everything else, bad enough it actually lifts some mist off his mind.

He does not apologize for the slowness and Reese does not denigrate it. They know each other too well for words right now.

...

As they approach the service entrance Reese changes his grip to give a bit of lift to essentially lower Finch down the big step used for unloading truck-beds. He finds the nearest bland car that looks easy to hotwire and unlocks the doors with a metal shiv. He unfolds Harold into the passenger seat, gets in himself, locks the doors, and releases all the tension for a moment.

Reese can hardly believe he is sitting in a car with Harold again. Not unscathed but alive. They need to get moving but he takes a few moments first. He looks hungrily at his boss, his friend, his partner. It's almost astounding to have the man right here again. He just wishes his friend looked better than almost dead.

Sensing his gaze, Harold executes a familiar twist at the waist to meet his eye.

Amazingly, the man is still in a three piece suit, glasses, tie, and even pocket-square intact. “Only you, Finch.” Reese says in awe. But the clothing is rumpled and hangs looser than it did.

Harold's blue eyes are turbid with sedation but he smiles smally and thanks Reese politely for the rescue.

“Anytime.”

The older man looks tolerably groomed but he smells stale under the clothes. He has some minor abrasions on his face, and Reese frets over the terrible lameness and soft sounds of pain he'd heard on their walk.

He hotwires the Camry and pulls out. He needs to tread conservatively. Finch is a 'really private person' and grilling him is an unsuitable method. But he needs to determine their destination; hospital or safe-house.

Clearing his throat he says, “Harold, if we rescued a Number from thirteen days of imprisonment by a sadistic criminal, wouldn't you recommend a medical evaluation to them?”

The hacker stares at him and his face goes from flat to horrified.

“Harold, wouldn't you?”

He doesn't answer the question but breathes out his own, “Thirteen?”

Reese senses a precipice and says carefully. “Yes.”

His friend looks away vacuously. “It felt much longer, I'll admit.”

His response is carefully supportive without being overt. “It always does.”

It was the right thing to say. Brotherhood in shared suffering. Harold gives his jerky shrug which Reese know is his approximation of a nod, a good start.

“So, hospital?” Reese translates succinctly.

“Absolutely not.”

There is no room in that voice for argument although Reese wants to.

“I think you had a focal seizure in the station.” Reese appeals to the part of Finch that the man values most – his brain.

“Undoubtedly. Take me to the library, Mr. Reese.”

He grips the wheel and wants to say, “How absurd.”

He tries to see it from Finch's point of view. The man had been a suspicious recluse before the kidnapping, so by now must be experiencing fulminate paranoia. He is injured, drugged, but he is still a highly brilliant man and should have his wishes respected. He must need some time, a familiar, withdrawn space to hunker down, before making any decisions.

“Whatever you say, Harold.” Reese drawls out with exaggerated ambivalence.

Harold must catch the tone and he harrumphs a bit. Reese smiles at the disapproving noise.

“Tell me if you need to stop.” Reese turns the heat up hoping to chase away Harold's continual shivers. He reaches over and drops the glove box, rummages around and pulls out a package of beef jerky. “How fortuitous.” He drops the plastic bag on Harold's lap. There is a half-full bottle of Coke rolling on the floorboard so he grabs that up and wedges it between Harold's knees.

The man fumbles in his haste as he unscrews the red cap and guzzles the drink, two-handed, swallowing at it even after the bottle is entirely ullage. He licks at the threaded neck and then fussily pats his lips dry with his sleeve.

“Thirsty?” Reese asks unnecessarily.

Harold wets his lips and says, “Adequate fluids have been withheld.”

Reese doesn't miss that the response is vague, passive, and it forgoes mentioning both the captivity and the captor. “We'll stop at a gas station.” John takes the empty bottle and tosses it in the back. “Can you eat that?”

Instead of opening the jerky Harold sets it in the cupholder. “No.”

“Okay.” Reese agrees with forced easiness. “Try this, then.” He's scrounged up a red and white striped peppermint from the console and offers the candy.

Harold accepts the treat, unwraps it dexterously with just one hand and pops it in his mouth.

“I worked five Numbers, helped them all, with Carter and Fusco. But I missed my technical support.” Reese wants to give Harold something good to think on. The man looks lackluster and so uncomfortable, shifting stiffly in his seat and ruminating on the candy.

“In the eventuality I was...unavailable...I set you up as an alternative admin for the system.”

Reese is pleased to hear a complete sentence from his friend, and his worry retracts somewhat.

“Well, I'll be happy to retrocede you the responsibility, when you're ready.” Yes, give Harold something to look forward to, a goal to reach.

“I as well.”

Reese feels pleased; Harold is in worse shape than he'd hoped but not as bad as Reese had feared when he'd seen the man in a wheelchair.

He pulls the sedan into an Exxon and shifts into park. “I am going to get you some fluids, do you need to go in?” If this was anyone else he'd have said 'do you want to use the bathroom' but Harold is so prim that Reese feels embarrassed for him at the thought.

The man shakes his head but looks torn. He is obviously exhausted but Reese can suddenly tell he does not want to be left alone. He glances over and see an older woman gassing up her Jeep nearby. “Excuse me, Ma'am?”

She looks at him nervously but he gives her his best smile and she thaws a bit. “My partner is ill and I don't want to leave him. Could you get us some Gatorade and crackers.” He proffers a twenty to her.

“Oh!” She melts more as she looks from Finch to Reese and back, and a doting smile crinkles her face. “How nice. Yes of course, dear.”

Once she's delivered the goods and drives off with a tender look, Reese gets back in the car and opens one of the sugary drinks. “Harold, you are a very smart man so I won't lecture you, but please keep in mind refeeding syndrome.”

Harold's eyes are fixated on the bottle but he does jerk his shoulders in acknowledgment. He drinks half the bottle down without a breath and then painstakingly pulls it away. Reese hands him a few crackers and doesn't stop glaring until Harold tepidly eats. “Good.”

He drums his fingers on the wheel and wonders why Harold hasn't asked about how Reese found him or what the plan is, the next step. He decides that right now the other man cannot look ahead or back and is trying to deal with the current moment. Reese will not force him, yet. “I got us a dog.” he says.

The flash of bemusement on Harold's stony face is enough to make Reese duck away to hide his laughter.

Schooling his expression, Harold says dryly, “ I look forward to meeting him or her.”

“Bear.” Reese supplies.

Harold looks worried.

Reese elaborates. “He's very well trained and loyal, you'll like him.”

“All right.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reese is a BAMF and Tillman is a doctor and Finch is a really private person. Also, Bear.

Even with the bright sunset lighting up the car windows, Reese wishes that Finch could doze. The trip is half-over and Harold has yet to rest. He's finished the sports drink and started on some ice-water Reese got for him at a drive-through. They'd exchanged few words, and when Reese had asked if the Machine was still safe, Finch had muttered some technical, abstruse nonsense that may have been an affirmative.

“Finch.” He tries again. “You aren't ready to talk about this and I respect that. But I need to know if the system is secure. Can we still trust the Numbers?” He has a vision of Root as a puppet master, sending them on pointless jobs and corrupting their work from afar.

Harold squirms in a way which makes Reese wonder if he's discomfited by the questioning or just needs a rest-stop soon. “It cannot be modified remotely.” He replies finally. “And she does not have that location.” His voice is diaphanous and his posture slumped. He looks ruinously exhausted.

“Well, that's good.” Reese understates.

“How did she know?” Harold is looking out the window and not at Reese.

John stares at the fleeing surface of I-95 and thinks, 'I am going to kill her so it doesn't matter,' but he says, “I'll help you find that out.”

Finch gives him a breadcrumb and says, “Most everyone involved with the Machine has been killed.”

That would explain the paranoia, the extreme privacy and secrecy. Reese assumes Finch has always been this way but maybe it was circumstances that forced the man into that state. “You've managed to stay alive so far. I won't let her get to you. But you have to help me help you.”

Finch looks sick as he says, “We trusted the federal government – we were such simpletons – no one can wield that sort of power.”

“The NSA would have built it themselves eventually. It's better that someone who knows what he's doing designed it.” Reese counters.

“It ruined my life.” He looks right at Reese now and says, “I thought it was a challenge, a way to help my city, patriotism....but it took everything from me.”

“We've saved people, we've made a difference in their lives. You saved me.” Reese reaches over and brushes Harold's sleeve and repeats firmly. “You saved me. Your machine and you. Thank you.”

He can feels Finch trembling and it takes several moments for the man to respond, more quickly than he usually speaks. “It was Nathan, his work, his idea to save the Numbers. I was selfish, scared.” Finch's voice drips with reproach and slows, each word leaden. “My own happiness was of more import than people's lives.”

Reese knows Nathan Ingram is dead, the public figure had been ostensibly killed in a domestic terrorist attack. He realized that Harold must have been there too. The injuries fit with an explosion. Against shrapnel and concussive forces, a human body is a terribly fragile thing.

“I need to know these things. Let me in, Finch. Let me be the person you can entirely trust.” Reese's throat is tight. He wants to be this man's guardian and friend, his partner and confidant. He wants to save Numbers with this man forever. “I can't protect you if I don't know the whole story.”

“Mr. Reese, not even I know the _whole_ story.”

Reese looks over sharply when he hears an overt shudder in the voice. Harold is wan and his eyelids flicker shut. “What's happening?” Reese demands.

Finch's hands clasp spasmodically in his lap and he whispers, “I believe I'm about to pass out.”

Cursing softly, Reese grapples at one of the thin wrists and looks for an exit ramp. He feels the peripheral pulse and finds it rhythmic, but too fast and thready. Harold's wrist is edematous and crusty from his constant restraint. Driving like a mad-man, Reese relocates his palm blindly to Finch's face and feels for breath. “Faint if you need to Harold, I'll take care of you.”

Finch crumples against the window with a _thunk._

“Damn it.” Reese spits out despite his permission for Harold to do so. He should have taken the man to a hospital, Baltimore literally has one of the best in the world. Who knows what Root has been giving him? And even without the drugs, almost two weeks with no food and little water would strain any constitution, not to mention someone with mysterious underlying conditions. Finch could be in renal failure or withdrawal. He could develop an arrhythmia and go into cardiac arrest or have a grand-mal seizure right here on the side of the highway.

He peels off an exit ramp and throws the car into park, climbs halfway across the center console and slants Harold towards him. He is breathing with a slight wheeze and is obviously dehydrated – sunken eyes and cracked lips – but he's not obviously decompensating. Reese gets out and rounds the car, carefully opens the passenger door and kneels with one leg jammed in next to Finch's.

His hands do not shake but only through sheer will as he unbuttons Harold's pinstriped jacket and silk vest. He pulls the fabrics aside and flips the tie over Finch's shoulder. He slips his hands under the untucked shirts to palpate Harold's torso. He doesn't feel any wetness, no wounds or obvious instabilities. He runs his palms around Finch, forces his hands between the seat-back and body. Nothing but some rough, superficial wounds near the scapulae. He doesn't linger on the copious, aged scar tissue.

Calming down takes effort. He could kick himself! Harold may have been bleeding out and Reese had just accepted the man's word that he was stable. A man who was drugged and ill and averse to human contact under even ideal circumstances, whose privacy was ever paramount. And despite Finch's promise not to lie to Reese, he may not be aware of his current physical state.

Harold must have his reasons for forgoing a hospital. It may not be secure, Root could be watching or Snow or the government and their Machine.

Reese does not know what to do. But he will not let his savior die in a stolen car on the side of this lonely highway.

Harold rouses, and a sliver of blue watches him.

“Hello.” Reese says kindly, not really expecting a reply. He runs his hands briskly over Harold's legs through wool pants.

“This is quite unnecessary.” Harold rasps back.

“You went down so suddenly Finch, I may have been worried.” Reese says with careful nonchalance. He leans away a little. “I hope you're not dying on me.”

Finch sighs. “I'm all right. Tired.”

“If you say so.” Reese allows, buttoning back up the vest, smoothing the tie, and draping his own jacket over Harold's front. Maybe he _had_ just fallen asleep.

It is dark now as Reese settles back in his seat and locks the doors. The dashboard icons gleam softly and throw color onto Finch's profile. Reese indulges in a minute to watch Harold, sipping at a Gatorade and charting the man's vitals. He'd known Finch was weary, had wanted him to sleep, but the haste of Finch's unconsciousness had alarmed him. He needs to get a grip. Harold is depending on him and doesn't need a worried friend right now; he needs a level-headed soldier.

And a doctor. Whatever the man says, that is happening.

Reese turns up the heat then gets his phone out and scrolls to a number he shouldn't have kept. It was important to Finch that they help the Number and move on. He'd insisted on no long-term contacts, no favors to call in; he didn't want to be like Zoe Morgan, a conductor of their own little orchestra. But Reese was more practical and less paranoid than Finch, so he had kept Megan Tillman's information. In their line of work a skilled doctor is an important person to have in your back pocket.

…

Although this city never sleeps, the library's street has decent nighttime shadowing. Reese uses this as a shield to prevent unwanted attention. New Yorkers are experts at minding their own business but a mostly unconscious, well-dressed man being carried bridal-style may dent even a hardened person's disinterest.

He hadn't planned on carrying Finch but the man had been profoundly asleep. His halfhearted efforts to wake Finch had been replaced by an experimental tug. When the older man hadn't resisted, Reese had scooped him up and out of the car.

Discomfort rouses the man and Reese steels himself against soft puffs of compressed pain. Harold does not complain or order Reese to stop but he grips in distress at John's shirtfront.

By the time Reese has them up the stairs he and Finch are both breathing heavily. He arranges Finch on the sagging couch and kneels next to it.

“Thank you, Mr. Reese.” Finch says tightly. He reaches to his back urgently and grinds at it with his bandaged hand.

Reese feels a pang of regret and wishes they were close enough he could rub Finch's pain away for him. But that just isn't the type of man Finch is, and the gesture would disconcert and abash him instead of provide comfort. He chooses to gift Finch instead by ignoring this pain that Reese knows he cannot fix anyway.

He gets Finch a mug of tepid water and a few oyster crackers. He deposits a fleece throw over his lap and sets the portable Lasko heater to oscillate over the couch. “Finch, I need to move the car and get some things.” Reese says once Harold's settled. “I'll be gone a quarter-hour.”

“Oh, yes.” Finch tinkers with his suit buttons and looks longingly at his computers “Well, I'll be quite safe here.” His eyes roam over the vaulted interior of his library and they turn tranquil.

Reese gets a phone out of the filing cabinet full of spares and burners. He places it in Finch's hand and then bends the hand onto Finch's chest. “Call me for anything.”

“All right.” Finch sounds like he wants to say something else but holds back. “Be safe, John.”

“Always.” Reese trots down the stairs and does not look back because he knows this has to be done. He's called Fusco and Dr. Tillman. He wants to fetch Bear, fetch Tillman, dump the car with Fusco, and get back to Harold. Then he plans to not leave the man's side until a new Number demands it.

The two humans and one dog are waiting for him a few blocks away when he pulls up in the stolen Camry. They are on opposite benches in a small playground, awkwardly avoiding each other as strangers do in nighttime public spaces. Fusco has Bear on a tight leash but can't prevent the dog from pulling away when he sees his master.

It does take more than fifteen minutes for him to return to the library since he returns on foot and insists Tillman wear Fusco's tie as a blindfold. He knows he called the right person when, with surprising aplomb, she slings her large medical bag over one shoulder to affix the fabric. She gives him a look of absolute trust before placing the blind and grasps his elbow. He loops Bear's leash around the same arm and leads them back to Harold's hideaway.

“What am I walking into here?” Tillman asks. “Are we talking traumatic injuries, toxins?”

Reese doesn't know himself so he says, “You'll have to find that out.”

The stairs go slow. “Finch, it's me and some friends.” He announces as they reach the floor. He takes Tillman's blindfold off and drops Bear's leash.

Finch is braced against the couch's corner, and he doesn't even try to twist towards them. He still has a hand clasped to his lower back and one anchored around his neck as well. His face is guarded as the trio come into his eye-line.

Bear should be a real help and Reese had taken the extra effort to get him here tonight. Dogs have an uncanny ability to soothe and comfort humans. When a new Number comes up, he needs someone to stay with Finch and give him a semblance of safety. The dog heels obediently although he dances in excitement at his new prospective friend.

“What a surprise.” Harold greets frostily. “Dr Tillman.” His glare reproves Reese. Then his eyes thaw when they catch an eager, fawn face. “And Bear, I presume?”

Bear yaps with approval and writhes in constrained excitement. Reese brings the Malinois over and directs his soft muzzle to Harold's knee. The hand on Finch's lower back automatically comes out to start stroking at silky ears and Bear leans into the touch with an ecstatic loll of his tongue. “I knew you two'd get along.” Reese smirks.

Dr. Tillman smiles at the scene but she looks edgy and her eyes are clinical as she scans Finch. “I remember you. You were that nice ER patient.” She looks between the two of them with dawning awareness.

Harold fondles Bear even as his hand trembles, and he archly replies. “Yes. Forgive me Doctor, I certainly didn't expect guests tonight.”

Tillman says, “You saved my life.”

“In fact, we saved Benton's life.” Harold corrects shrewdly.

“No, you saved _my_ life.” She repeats with such firmness that Harold forgoes semantics. “And now you need my help.”

Harold shifts stiffly and his eyes flash fiercely. “I do not require medical attention, as I told Mr. Reese.” Bear whines and pushes at Harold when he stops petting. “Please leave, Doctor.” He looks at the dog when he says this.

The woman glances at Reese and back to Harold. “Let me help you, please let me repay you.” She reaches out for him but stops as Finch recoils with a strangled breath.

Everyone, even the dog, freezes at this reaction.

Reese realizes he may have overlooked a few essential details when selecting this specific doctor.

Tillman backs up and covers her mouth in distress at the reaction. “I know I've done things. Terrible things.” She gestures at him vaguely. “But you've been mistreated. You're hurt, _please_ let me help you.” Megan is an undeniably adept doctor and caring person. Even if she'd drugged, kidnapped and almost murdered a man once.

Reese wonders how she is so discerning with the dim lightning and Finch covered in layers of suit and inscrutability. But when he looks at the figure clinically he sees the raw wrists and guarded set of narrow shoulders. He can see the unhealthy pallor that speaks to deprivation and a pinched hungry look to Harold's face.

“The injuries are largely chronic, which obviates your utility.” Harold is still tensed away from the woman. Bear crawls up onto the couch and Harold buries his face in the fallow coat.

“My _utility_? You're human and you're hurt and even if your hurts are _old_ it doesn't mean they don't require care.” Tillman says with such compassion that from anyone else it might be nauseating.

Harold repeats, “Please, leave.” He looks to Reese and says rather coldly, “Mr. Reese. I appreciate what you're trying to do. But in future, do not presume to take such licenses.” He is uncomfortable and obviously upset at Reese.

They are at an impasse and John knows the doctor will not force herself on Harold. He feels a surge of impatience (how many times had he coveted a doctor's tender care in his previous life?) and fights it back. He glares at Harold and says, “Okay Finch. But I won't help any more Numbers until you help yourself.” It is a low blow and may sunder this tenuous partnership. But does Harold really think they can just go back to normal like nothing's happened?

Finch unsuccessfully tries to shield his stricken expression behind the dog. He is breathing quickly but his voice is quite level. “Then I am still a captive. My choices removed from me.”

“Don't you dare. You said before, that your selfishness, it got in the way of the Numbers. Don't let that happen again.” Reese feels mean and wants to rattle Harold out of his indulgent obstinance. He tamps down the surge of anger. It comes from a place that never wants to lose this new life; the Numbers and Finch are all he has. He won't lose them. He can't. “You're going to let Megan help you so you can continue to help others.”

Tillman gazes quietly at them both but does not make a move. She will not proceed without absolute consent.

Harold looks so betrayed that Reese physically flinches. “You win then, Mr Reese. Do what you will.” Harold deflates. It is not until this moment that the man lets his unwellness fully shine through. As he grants access, his facade cleaves, and he looks like someone who has been methodically dismantled.

The permission has been granted but with obvious manipulation. Tillman cautiously helps Harold work off his outer layers but doesn't push for more. He unbuttons his shirt but does not remove it. Even so, Reese has never seen Harold so unattired and shudders at the vulnerability in his small frame. He looms in the background, ready to help but unwelcome in this intimate duet between doctor and patient.

Dr. Tillman collects a blood sample and runs it through an I-STAT. She auscultates thoroughly and lifts his undershirt to study the ulcers on his shoulder blades. “Bedsores.” She states with professional detachment. She checks the scar tissue but find no anomalies and moves on. “Could you get us some water?” She pointedly asks Reese.

He acknowledges the need for privacy and lingers in the ancient restroom. When he eventually returns she's studying the results of the blood analyzer and Harold is attempting to keep Bear out of his lap.

“You're bloodwork reads like a clin-path case study.” She shows them the results and there are more abnormals than normals. “You really should be in a hospital.”

Harold reaches at his suit but Reese intercepts him and hands him a stack of clean clothing. Reese knows about the little room and cot that Harold keeps here and had found it well-stocked with personal items for long nights spent at the library.

Finch runs his fingers over the soft, clean fabrics reverently and asks them politely to turn around. As he's maneuvering into the clothing Tillman continues, “You're azotemic, hypoglycemic. Some of your electrolytes are trending low. Potassium fluctuations, as I'm sure you know, can be a quick path to death.”

They turn back when Harold permits them and she continues gently. “You're in pain: tachypnea, mydriasis. If you don't get a handle on it, your heart and endocrine systems will suffer. Your BNP is high, I bet your cortisol is elevated too. Your body is stressed.”

Harold reserves are depleted but he looks more himself as he fastens the jacquard mauve shirt deftly and begins to struggle into a wool cardigan. The umber housecoat is well-worn and obviously expensive, thick and soft with a subtle tartan pattern. Reese had known he would want nice clothing to put on.

“Are any of the abnormalities inherently deadly?” Harold asks wearily. He is fading fast, warm and snug now in his fresh attire and visibly uncomfortable with their attention and closeness.

“They can all probably be improved with careful care and rehydration.” She says reluctantly.

“Tell us what to do and we'll do it here.” Reese says firmly. Harold has his reasons and although he may not understand them he respects them; they will not go to a hospital. The man had suffered through enough and now it is time to rest.

“Okay.” Tillman says.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harold is protective over books and Reese is protective over Harold

When Harold falls asleep his subconscious takes the wheel and crashes him into a miasma of crooked terrors. He is Manette imprisoned in the Bastille as his years erode away. The prison morphs into the Tower of London with only a Vantablack raven for company. He is Bernard and force-fed Soma until he is pliant and sits indifferently, waiting eternally for Godot under a skeletal tree.

The dreams feel absurdly actual. Even once he jolts awake, for a second he is all of these characters at once and yet no one. He feels apart from his body and sees Harold Finch from afar. He pities this man whose reality is as loathsome as his nightmares. Harold Finch – a protagonist in his own Greek tragedy. His life of felicity turned rancid, the loss of best-friend, and true-love; the Machine his hamartia.

But his story has an epilogue and though it's not quite bliss at least it's penance. Loss and triumph, a diametric life.

Well. He is _unquestionably_ high right now – Dr. Tillman had certainly not spared the morphine.

His meandering mind comes back somewhat. He is still on the old library couch, drifting in drugged complacency with his new dog plastered against his side. Anxiety and pain are still there, but they are softly filtered like sunlight through curtains.

Reese is here with him, watchful from Harold's desk chair. He is reading a Dickens but sets it open, upside down in his lap when Harold wakes.

“You'll damage the shelfback.” Harold scolds.

“Would you rather I dog-ear my place?” Reese asks, just to garner the look of rebuke.

Finch positively scowls. “If you reference the colophon, you'll see that is a first edition.”

“It doesn't seem in great condition, what's a little more wear and tear.” But Reese hands it over delicately.

“Don't let the deckle edge fool you.” Harold trails loving fingers over the title. It had been one of Grace's favorites.

Reese is studying him surreptitiously. “You've been asleep six hours. How do you feel?”

Finch tries not to rail against the personal question. How does he _feel_? His shame – that he allowed himself to be captured, couldn't rescue himself, that he'd been restrained by a hundred-pound sociopath for almost a fortnight – is so great it almost eclipses the agony of his neck. And he is scared for himself and the Machine. Frightened of Root's idolatry and what she may do next.

He wants to let Reese in, needs someone to trust and confide in. But by doing so their relationship will shift, their interactions change. He wouldn't be the cryptic hacker anymore. He'll be a victim, just another Number that Reese saved. And Reese might coddle him, or worse, pity him. He strains against that, doesn't want or need it.

Change takes time, but Harold tries for honesty. “I'm experiencing some degree of...dysphoria,” he admits vaguely, stroking Bear's questing face.

“I may have noticed.” Reese does not specificate and Harold appreciates the tact.

“I don't want to discuss it.” That is honest too. He's trying to open up to Reese, but for so long he's been stuck in a cycle where his paranoia feeds itself like an ouroboros.

_Oh, my_. He really is high as a kite.

He reaches for some crutches, providentially preserved from Reese's last injury. A walker would probably work better but his pride couldn't abide it.

“You don't want to discuss what exactly: the captivity, or the nightmares? The injuries?” Reese darts forward to help arrange the crutches which are too tall for Harold.

“Yes.” Harold starts going lopsidedly. He needs to get away until his mind is straightened up.

Reese places a spotting hand on his back. “Sit down Harold, where are you going?”

Harold says with sharp sarcasm, “On a walk. The professional, with whom you forced me to consult, stressed the importance.” Tillman had in fact encouraged him to ambulate to prevent muscle atrophy, but she'd advised waiting a few days. “I am taking a shower.”

John and Bear match his pace easily. “There's no hot water.”

“Experts attribute cold showers to a plethora of benefits – ”

“–you'll eventually have to leave the library.” Reese discerns.

Harold shakes him off and says, “I appreciate your care, Mr. Reese, however I won't require assistance for this.” Bear manages to slip in with him but he shuts the door firmly in John's face. Finally, privacy! But as he putters around the bathroom, the unlit corners and empty echoes trouble him and he wishes he was not alone.

The water is frigid and its pressure unfortunate. He has an old lawn chair he used as a shower-seat, back when his injuries were fresh, and finds it still performs quite nicely. To wash away weeks of grime and fear with tea-tree soap is heavenly.

Even though he gets wet, Bear monitors the foamy runoff and gravely stays near Harold the whole time. “You're a fine dog.” Harold feels obligated to say to the damp, vulpine face.

He brushes his teeth for ten straight minutes and flosses until he is spitting blood. There is no mirror, and he is glad to be spared his reflection. In it, Root may be lurking.

They emerge, both shivering, to find Reese just outside the door like a gargoyle, motionless and glaring. He falls into step but does not offer assistance until Harold's shambly gait falters. Reese replaces one crutch with himself and guides Harold the last few steps. “So, did it live up to the hype?”

Harold is exhausted already. “Not especially, perhaps there's a lag?”

Reese towels Bear before letting him back on the couch and Harold drifts off to the pungent scent of soggy dog.

He wants to thank Reese for helping him, helping the Numbers, but words are insufficient. Reese has saved so many since they've been partners. How can one really thank another for a debt so monumental? Perhaps a recursive algorithm; if he could break all this down into smaller and simpler pieces, he can eventually find the solution.

The nightmares soften in time as his morphine metabolizes. When he awakens again, his pain is recrudescing but his mind no longer feels inebriated. His limbs are heavy and sleep lures him back. Muzzily he sees that both his guardians are still present; Bear curled at his feet and Reese reading again. Despite his discomfort, Harold is able to fall back into secure sleep.

...

Reese hands Harold a mug of beef broth to sip and tells him they have a new Number.

“Ah, the Numbers wait-” Harold begins, “-for no man.” Reese finishes. “Yeah, heard that before.” They exchange smiles that are eager rather than inconvenienced. This is, after all, what they do.

Harold arranges himself gingerly at the desk and when his hands hover on the keyboard a change comes over him. His posture firms and his eyes sharpen. His fingers are buoyant and tap deftly across keys like hummingbird wings.

Eventually, Reese has to go out in person – there is only so much Carter and Fusco can do – but he frets about until Harold orders him sharply to leave. The streets are crowded and Reese can't help but look for Root in every brunette he sees.

“You'll want to avoid uptown this time of day, it's gridlocked.” Finch's sardonic voice from the bluetooth feels like coming home.

“Isn't it always?” Reese quips. But when Finch doesn't respond he becomes worried and prompts, “Well?”

The response is immediate but distracted. “Yes, Mr. Reese?”

“Did you hear my question?”

“Oh, yes. I assumed you were being rhetorical.”

Relieved, he can hear the hacker typing away in the background. Harold's voice had sounded fine and Reese forcibly relaxes. He is going to help the Number but he'll circle back to the library soon. It's really too early to leave Finch alone. “Harold, I need to know you're okay, so for now you're gonna have to talk to me when I can't be there.” Reese jostles through the crowded street but his focus is mostly on the voice.

“John, I didn't hire you to protect me, it's the Numbers that matter.” Harold reminds him.

“I can do both.”

…

When the voice in John's ear becomes taciturn, he heads back to the library. He greets Bear who skitters across the floor in excitement and finds Harold still working at his desk, looking wretched. He grips at the armrests and his damp face glows sickly from the computer screens. His posture is so stiff that under the tasteful cardigan his back is concave.

Reese wants to admonish him but knows Harold would not respond well. Instead he says, “We both need a break.” He grips an elbow and tries to ease Harold up, but the man resists.

“What about our Number?” Harold squints at him and his eyelids quiver painfully.

“At home and asleep, safe for now.” Reese reassures. “Come on.”

He gets Finch transferred to the couch. This close he can smell the tang of iron. “You're bleeding.”

Harold's expression is reserved when he says, “It's fine, not serious.”

“So it's unserious. But you still need to take care of it.” Reese wonders if Harold did better last time he was injured; had he diligently followed the doctor's orders and carefully nursed his problems? Or had he forged ahead and ended up disabled from his own bullheadedness? Maybe he's just inured by now to pain and unsure where to draw a line. “Let me help.”

Harold toes off his leather shoes without untying them, which speaks to his exhaustion, and his heather-gray socks are tainted with red. Reese peels them each off with the indifference of someone used to other people's blood. Harold feet are crossed with lashes, sticky with serum and half-healed scabs.

“I couldn't reach them, to clean, to wrap. I thought socks would serve.” Harold looks timid. “Root was worryingly unpredictable.”

Reese doesn't think he can stand to hear Harold talk about this. He'd known the man had been restrained, starved, but he'd convinced himself that was all. That it had been passive torment. He doesn't want to envision the peaceable man being actively tortured. That dull thud of flesh and smell of blood and pain. Harold is a dovish sort, but even if he'd wanted to oppose Root, the drugs and infirmities would have prevented it.

The image of this seeps into his mind's-eye perniciously. Reese knows about interrogation, too much. He knows Harold's type exactly; he had questioned bookish introverts before. He could imagine how it had gone. This was a man who would wheeze and keen while suffering, rather than shouting. Someone who'd curl inwards into his shocked, bemused body. A quiet steel that is unexpected and would anger his captor into further cruelty.

These imaginings make Reese so sick he needs several long breaths. “Stay right there.” He is raging and if Root was here now he would strangle her leisurely with his bare hands.

Once he's calmer he returns with a library cart loaded with medical supplies. He kneels silently and cups both damaged feet, large hands gentle as cat-paws. Harold looks away, ostensibly engrossed with Bear, stroking the dog and smoothing his coat. Reese douses the wounds copiously with sterile saline. The hemorrhage is sluggish and, as Harold had said, not serious. He applies Mupirocin and telfas and a light wrapping of cast padding.

He is resigned when he asks, “What else are you hiding?”

Harold ruffles up like an indignant bird. “I wasn't concealing this, Dr. Tillman knew.”

“But you didn't tell me. Don't you trust me?” Reese's tone is disappointed.

“In my life, trust has become rather complicated.” Harold looks down at him lengthily, then adds, “I have sores from restraint. There is muscle and nerve pain as well, acute-on-chronic. My feet you've seen.” He says this all quickly and then looks away in apprehension.

“Okay, thank you for telling me.” John deliberately makes no fuss, but he certainly realizes that Harold just opened the door and let him in. A big step towards something. “Do you need help with any of that?”

Harold shiftily replies, “I should be able to manage. Now, what can you tell me about our Number?”

Reese gives a discursive account of his day. Harold has been cut off for two weeks, he needs a reminder of mundane life. If he won't leave the library, he can at least experience life vicariously. So John describes the Number, but also the city streets in detail, a few funny scenes he'd stumbled across, a flashy car, and a new doughnut shoppe they should try. He tells Bear about a sleek Great Dane that'd pointedly urinated on a lawyer's dandy suit at a crosswalk.

Returning the gift, Harold tells him about his day. His byzantine hacks and esoteric coding are beyond John's abilities but he's likes seeing Harold like this, competent and skilled. It supplants images of the man beaten and sick.

Before allowing Harold to take his medication, Reese prepares them each some microwaved soup. He can tell Harold's nauseated from pain and privation but the man pragmatically sips at it. He pours Bear kibble then takes him on a quick walk.

“Anytime you want to go home I could take you.” Reese offers as he returns.

An unimpressed expression crosses Finch's face and he replies, “I'm still not telling you where I live.”

“You could come to my place then, sleep in a real bed, take a hot shower and have a meal that's not from a can.” Reese's offer is genuine, no ulterior motive, but he worries how Harold might interpret it.

“I appreciate that, truly. I wish to stay here. The library is my home, really.” Finch smiles sweetly, a more authentic smile than his usual wry one.

“That's fine.” Reese hesitates and then asks, “Does Root know about this place?”

Harold goes still, eyes vacant. “I don't see how. But she is disturbingly clever.” He blows on the soup and primly spoons it up.

“Once your feet heal, we could go out for breakfast. That new doughnut place has outdoor seating, Bear could come, and there's tea.” It is just two blocks away and they could go before the morning crowds.

Finch looks suspicious but he agrees. “All right, I'd like that.”

...


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did ya'll really think I wouldn't take a Canon-approved issue like agoraphobia and run with it? You don't know me at all then.

After their light dinner, Reese takes the couch and convinces Harold to sleep in the cot in his little back-room. The man is moving like his joints are glass and is white to the lips. John grants him privacy but hears him shifting restlessly for a long time. He wishes he could do something useful, say something helpful, but he feels powerless and inept. John had spent his life razing people; he isn't practiced at mending.

He sleeps lightly so hears when Harold shuffles to the bathroom to vomit. He vacillates, knowing the man would not want to be seen so vulnerable. But he strains with his desire to assist. He hears Harold go back to bed before he can decide what to do. Listens to Bear's claw-clicks as he follows and is glad Harold has a loyal companion.

Before dawn he is awake and takes Bear with him on a quick outing. They return with fresh bread, plain and wholesome, and ginger tea, soothing for nausea. Harold is still abed so Reese goes to his room humbly, aware this may be crossing a line. He knocks at the door-frame, as there is no door. “Morning Finch, could you eat?”

Harold is rigidly arrayed on his back, still fully dressed and laying atop the counterpane. Despite his guarded expression, he looks miserably uncomfortable and wan. “Thank you, but I don't believe I'm capable.”

“Your body is confused, but it needs nourishment. The feeling will pass.” Reese says in the matter-of-fact tone of someone with first hand knowledge. He thinks Finch will respond best to a dispassionate diagnosis.

Reese is just able to resist aiding Finch who struggles up with defensive body language. He helps rearrange pillows and then hands over a white-spelt roll, still warm from the corner bakery.

Harold is trembling just enough that when Reese perches on the bed he can feel the vibrations. The tea and bread go down well and Reese feels better leaving him that morning for their Number.

“Keep in contact Mr. Reese.” Harold calls thinly, still in bed.

By noon he returns to find Harold looking immaculate in a fresh suit. The wool is rich chocolate with a subtle rose plaid, complete with a coordinating houndstooth tie and velvet waistcoat. Reese doesn't have the keenest eye or interest for fashion but he can appreciate that clothes make a statement and influence perceptions. In general, he admires Harold's tastes, and he is pleased to find the man well enough to make his usual effort.

Finch sits at the desk and seems to be studying the Number's financial records. To someone who did not know him, he would appear quite well. “Was your morning productive?” Harold asks, turning in the Aeron chair to face him. Like his clothes, he has made an effort and is immaculately groomed. But the overall effect is marred by his sweat-spiked hair and bloodshot eyes. His lips are still pale and grimaced.

“You heard, what do you think?” Reese knows that Finch listens in on him even if his bluetooth is 'off'. It's only fair since he does the same. They both like the convenience of keeping their lines open when they're working.

Finch raises his brows. “Indeed.” Finch gestures at the bank records. “She's in arrears.”

By that evening, the victim's problems are resolved and a new Number hasn't come through. Before returning to the library, Reese goes home for a shower and change of clothes.

It's been just over two days since their partnership was reunified and they've already saved someone's life. A human's life. Someone who would irrefutably be dead if not for them. John will never take this for granted. This thing they do – it's _incredible_.

He feels blithe, almost high from their success when he mounts the library's second story, two steps at a time. Compared to the glow of dusk and amber streetlights, the old halls are dank and cheerless. Finch's screens are off so the only light is what filters through leaded windows.

The man himself is dozing on the couch. Like most people at rest, he looks unbearably fragile. Reese knows this is not true; knows this man is calloused and hardheaded and could hack anyone's life to ruin with just a smartphone. But he doesn't look it right now.

There is an open manila file next to him: photos of Root, newspaper articles, and print-outs about Sam Groves. Reese had tried to hide it all away, hadn't wanted Harold to see it so soon. He gently straightens the materials and closes the file.

Harold stirs awake and watches Reese set the file into a cabinet. “It is imperative we locate Ms. Groves.”

“We will. You're brilliant. We'll find her.” Reese reassures and sits down next to him.

“She bettered us.” Harold reluctantly admits. “She hacked my system, then set us up. She murdered Ms. Corwin and Mr. Weeks.”

Reese notes that Harold obstinately does not mention what she did to him. “She'll make a mistake, eventually, and you'll find it.”

Finch looks doubtful and adjusts his glasses uneasily. “How did you know I'd be at the train-station?” He looks quickly to his system and back.

“Your Machine helped me find you.” Reese replies.

Harold looks worried now but his tone is sure. “That's not how it works.”

“I gave it an ultimatum.” Reese admits. “I didn't give it a choice.”

Finch is positively fidgeting and responds, “That is far outside the specification of its program.” He looks again over at his computers.

“People change, evolve. Maybe it has too.”

Finch just repeats, although with less resolve, “That's not how it works.”

…

The next morning when Reese goes out to case the new Number, Harold goes home.

More accurately, he tries to.

He has Bear on a leash and is relieved the dog is, as promised, well-trained and does not pull. Harold is walking without aid but his pace is cumbersome. Fellow pedestrians stream around him. He doesn't mind being slower but occasionally someone jostles or buffets him and shakes his precarious balance. Bear is a helpful presence, knee-high and sturdy.

It's not his weakness or the crowds that prevents him reaching his home. It's not even his feet or his back.

It's the open sky.

It's the vacuum of towering buildings and the suction of endless streets and the pull of infinite people.

Sounds everywhere and blurs of faces moving too quickly.

It's overwhelmingly alarming.

The problem is, once one is outside it takes effort to get oneself not-outside. And he doesn't have much reserve of effort at the moment. He tries to navigate along busy Madison to get back to his library. It is crowded with tourists flocking the Empire State Building, locals visiting the UPS store and slugabeds seeking late breakfasts. It's a wonderful location with a great ambiance. If one is not currently having a panic attack.

He's too stimulated to enter an eatery or business and too intimidated to duck into a dark alleyway. He grips Bear's leash and tilts to stroke the nuzzling face.

He could call Reese, that's what he _should_ do. Reese would love to help escort him. The man is probably listening right now and can hear Harold's panicky breaths and soft sounds of despair. He'll appear out of nowhere and sweep Harold to safety like a comic-book hero that caters to hapless, middle-aged billionaires.

The vision of Reese having to save him from an ordinary Manhattan street gives Harold enough clout to accomplish it on his own. He flings his graffitied door open and the dimness and smell of books is a panacea.

“Well.” He tells Bear, who woefully noses at the door. “Well. That went poorly.”

He mounts the stairs sideways, a method he'd perfected for bad days, and sits down in his chair confusedly. He feels acceptable – not great, but okay. The pain is there and worse than usual but better than worst. His feet pang a bit and he's mildly light-headed.

He isn't sure what just happened.

If this was a panic attack it certainly didn't feel like he'd expected it to. Nevermind that those happened to people with nervous dispositions or anxiety disorders, or perhaps soldiers with PTSD. He isn't a nervous person at all, really. Paranoid and cautious yes, but not nervous. And he isn't a veteran, hasn't seen war. So where has this come from?

He is still parsing this conundrum when Reese's footsteps echo up the stairs, back from his reconnaissance. Harold wishes he had time to check his reflection somehow, make sure the ignominy of this new issue is not written on his face. He enters his system's passcode and then schools himself carefully: straight posture, hands placed just-so near the keyboard, feet flat on the floor. Adjusts his glasses and tie neatly, swallows around the lump still in his gullet.

By the time Reese rounds the security gate Finch looks composed. “Good Morning, Mr. Reese.” He says with perfect evenness.

John lurks in the hallway to pet Bear. He looks sidelong at Harold and must see something, somehow, because he asks, “Are you all right, Finch?”

He wishes Reese was not quite so good at reading people, it makes his life that much harder sometimes. “Perfectly sound.” He only realizes how ludicrous this word choice is after it's said. Literally speaking, he hasn't been sound for some years.

“Hm. If you say so.”

Harold dislikes Reese's favored phrase because it's just polite enough that there is no mannerly rejoinder. 'Yes, I say so' comes off rather snappishly defensive. He types some spare bits of code he'd meant to jot down earlier. Something he's working on to shore up his security if (when) Root tries to breach his system again.

“Was your morning with our Number productive?” He asks while typing. His neck is starting to remind him that it has spent the last fortnight sleeping on a floor and it is not done punishing him for this transgression.

“Yes.” Reese is quiet for several minutes, and Harold just knows the man is trying to force him to make eye contact, to engage. He renews the concentration on his screens in retaliation, his fingers flying over the keyboard. He toggles into a different program and cuts into an algorithm he needs to update. John can stare at him all day if he so chooses, Harold has work to do. He doesn't want or need to have a heart-to-heart.

He actually forgets about Reese and his own treasonous neck as he steeps in his tasks. The code flows from his hands like notes from a pianist. He crafts a clever jumble that makes his lips quirk at the ingenuity, and he writes another short line that may look unsophisticated but in its simplicity it's stunning.

When he surfaces from his recondite craft, Reese is on the couch with Bear, watching him openly.

“Something I can help you with, Mr. Reese?” Harold asks courteously, swiveling the chair to face him.

Reese just replies, “It's almost lunch. You feel up to going out?” His mouth's hard lines break into a kind smile that makes Finch feel bad for ignoring him. The man looks exhausted and strained and Finch knows it's his fault.

“I have rather a lot of maintenance here.” Harold replies vaguely. “One of the vagaries of a custom OS.”

“If you say so.”

Finch decides he must prioritize a witty repartee for that irritating phrase.

“Do you feel hungry for anything particular?” Reese continues innocently.

Harold takes a moment to ponder but nothing seems particularly alluring. The first several days of his captivity, he had fantasized about food. What he would eat, what he would stuff in his pockets for later. The feel of a full stomach and the strength of glucose and protein inside his body. He'd had a lifetime of meals to fuel his imaginings.

He's been peckish before, a day or so of fasting during busy times. Felt the pang and ache for an overdue meal. But nothing had prepared him for true hunger, factual starvation. Like a rat gnawing at his insides, the cramps and spasms of an empty gastrointestinal tract ripping inside him. The pervasive weakness of hypoglycemia. Functional ileus as his digestion relinquished the battle.

Since his freedom, he doesn't feel either particularly hungry or satisfyingly full. The feedback loop is sundered. He should eat he supposes. He'd vomited his dinner and eaten only a fist-sized roll for breakfast.

“Whatever you think appropriate, considering the circumstances.” He tells Reese finally. He trusts his companion to make a conscientious choice.

Reese brings back naan and dal shorba, plain and nutritious fares. As usual, he's met Harold's exact needs without definitive instructions.

“I thank you.” Finch says with more gravity than is requisite for a mere food-run.

“Happy to help.” Reese replies easily.

“Strictly speaking, I don't mean for the food.”

Reese just says, “I know.” He tosses some naan to Bear. “Happy to help.”

...


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harold deals with things by not dealing with things. And analyzing his feelings with, what else, books.

That evening, Harold thanks Reese again for his devotion but tells him to please go home and take care of himself. Reese replies with a noncommittal shrug and tells Finch, “Goodnight then.”

Harold settles into his cot with a laptop and Bear. He does not google 'panic-attacks', nothing so pedestrian as that. Instead he peruses Pubmed and scrutinizes available literature. He may be a computer scientist but he still a scientist. He reads journal articles on the psychology of captivity and the consequences of starvation. He spends fifteen horrified minutes on the _Minnesota Starvation Experiment_ and feels that some of his current problems make better sense.

He also feels guilty. There is no denying he's been through...trials...but reading dispassionate analyses of other's sufferings gives him perspective on his own. It hadn't been so bad. _Really_. He had been kept in a climate controlled home and been allowed basic hygiene and fluids. He'd been verbally threatened, and yes, he'd been beaten and to a small degree molested but she'd hardly bothered.

Mostly he'd just sat in a chair – hardly the stuff of horror. Mere child's play on the grand scale of what humans do to each other. In truth, he'd endured nothing worth agonizing over.

So, armed with this knowledge and a renewed determination to _get over it,_ he changes into Italian silk pajamas and goes determinedly to sleep.

Despite his new resolve, the night is restless and tainted. He wakes up early, weary, but he resists the indulgence to sleep in since he rarely did _before_.

He needs to get back to normal. So, he showers frostily, shaves exactly, and applies a spritz of _Caron’s Poivre._ He dons the absolute most indulgent suit he keeps at the library, a _Y. Saint Laurent_ in taupe and lilac, and opts for an audacious balthus tie-knot. He cannot bend yet to rewrap his feet but he thinks they look better so he sits on the bed and painstakingly pulls argyle socks – two per foot for padding – over the battered skin.

“Good morning, Mr. Reese.” He and Bear enter the main room to find Reese has evidently spent the night. He is lounging on the couch, reading C.S. Lewis and sipping what smells acridly like instant-coffee. “I gave you a condo, did I not?” Harold looks meaningfully at the rumpled blankets and clothing.

Reese isn't the least bit fazed. “You shouldn't be alone, Harold.” He carefully closes _The Silver Chair_ and sets it aside.

“Much as I appreciate the sentiment, I insist we get back to a normal routine.” Harold perches in the Aeron and logs into his system. “We have work to do, people to help.”

“I'm not much for routines. When you go home, I'll go.” Reese counters.

“Very well, tonight then.” Harold says firmly. “If the Number allows.”

“Right.” Reese finishes his battery-acid. “Breakfast?”

According to surveillance, the newest number is still abed. He checks the system and finds no-one new has come through since midnight. He tabs through his various alias's emails to make sure nothing needs immediate attention. He turns to Reese who is waiting patiently. “Oh, yes, that would be appreciated.” He isn't hungry, but now he knows that may be normal and he should keep a regular meal schedule until he can trust his gut again – so to speak.

“Eggs, toast?” Reese suggests.

“Fine, fine.” Harold is already focused back in his screens. There is an expunged police report in their Number's name that he needs to investigate.

“We could go to _Lyrics_.” John is watching him attentively.

That gets Finch's attention. “Well.” He lays his hands flat on the desktop to keep them from clenching since Reese is very adept at reading body language. “I'm not prepared for a twenty-minute walk.” The excuse is valid, if a bit flimsy.

Reese eyes soften and he amends, “We'll take a cab.”

“Perhaps another time.” Harold gets back to his work. He isn't hungry anyway.

“I'll bring you something, then.”

“Fine.” Finch nods and wishes John would leave. Introverts require seclusion to process and recharge and he's had scant time alone lately. He feels his skin prickle from constant interaction.

Reese seems to translate the curt affirmative because he stolidly departs with Bear.

The library feels remarkably barren.

Harold is filled with the memory of Nathan stood over this very desk, scattered with a mishmash of cobbled equipment. Keen eyed but posture slouched under responsibility. Then Harold had swept in and terminated the backdoor, disparaged his best friend's competency and lectured him on the greater good. He recalls exactly how Nathan's expression had crested with betrayal before falling, like the edge of a breaking wave, into regret.

…

His old life is gone, but Finch indulges in watching Grace more often than may be considered polite. Nothing unseemly, but he likes to check in with her. After twenty minutes of research on the Number he opens the tracking program and finds Grace walking the little dog they adopted together in Washington Square Park. They stroll for awhile, then sit on his favorite bench where she eats a breakfast burrito from a food truck, sharing choice morsels with her fluffy companion.

Watching his beloved from afar usually engenders aching loneliness. Today, the gnawing pressure starts in his chest and spreads until he feels nauseated. Grace is so alone too and he hurts for her. He feels light-headed and suddenly uneasy, as to why he's unsure. His stomach heaves and he cringes, gasps, about to be sick.

Suddenly, Reese is there, bringing a wastebasket and placing a hand between his shoulders. “Harold, deep breaths.” Reese carefully eases him down so his forehead is on the desk.

“Oh.” He pants until the wave of illness passes then sits up gingerly, gulping. “Must be the antibiotics.” His racing heart calms.

“Sure.” John rubs a steady hand on Finch's back and his gaze creeps to the video feed.

Finch darts forward and keys Ctrl+L to black-out the screen.

“All right?” Reese carefully asks, setting down a bagged breakfast on the desk

Harold hastily moves _The Silver Chair_ away from the greasy food-bags. He smooths its leather-tooled cover and thinks about saying 'I'm fine' but he'd once promised not to prevaricate.“I love her, even now, even apart.”

“I understand.” Longing perfuses Reese's voice. “Love doesn't end just because someone's taken out of your life.”

“Yes.” Finch is relieved Reese is back, grateful in fact; he's grown used to the continual presence and it helps attenuate his lonesome ache. He doesn't have Grace, but he has a new person to care for, in a different way than Grace, but still to treasure. He lifts the book and asks, “You were reading this. Have you an affinity for C.S. Lewis?”

Reese pauses at the non-sequitur then replies, “I like the fantasy. In Narnia, good triumphs.” John unpacks sourdough toast, omelets, and Canadian bacon. The food looks good; it seems Reese had indeed gone all the way to _Lyrics_.

Harold traces the author's name, embossed in gold and asks, “Mr. Lewis wrote in varied genres. Are you familiar with _The Four Loves?”_

“I've only read his _Chronicles_.”

“It's not fantasy, but it is fantastic. He expatiates on different types of love: benevolence, romantic, familial.”

John has arranged the food into a sort of charcuterie board, making it easy for them to pick out what they want. He looks up attentively and replies, “Sounds interesting.”

“One of the loves is _philia –_ friendship. But a profoundly absolute friendship. Mutual surety, reciprocal fealty.” Finch cannot looks at Reese as he speaks, instead he softly unstacks napkins. “There's no equivalent term in English. 'The crown of life' Lewis called it.”

Their gazes align briefly across the desk but Harold cannot stand the flinty intensity. He hopes the man understands to what he's alluding. But despite the prolixity, his point is not clear so he fumbles on. “Lewis thought _philia_ a lost art in modern society. He referenced role-models like David and Jonathan.”

“I'm familiar with them.” Reese answers slowly. He pulls up a chair and pours them orange juice. “How about Hamlet and Horatio?”

“Rather an unfortunate end, but a good example. There are numerous literary models: Bennet and Lucas, Aubrey and Maturin.” Harold is apprehensive; what if he's overestimated the man's opinion towards him? He holds a power over Reese – he's the boss, the benefactor – and he cannot abuse that power, would abhor that.

It had been easy enough with Nathan, theirs had been an organic friendship grown with time and mutual goals. He's only known Reese a year and they've come together at both their lives' nadirs. What if he's being presumptuous? The line between employer and friend is a gulf.

Harold knows he is driving this conversation into the ground. He starts to wrap his tongue plainly around his point when Reese breaks in – “How about Harold and John?” Reese has on a teasing smirk but his eyes are brimming with fidelity.

“Well, precisely. On my part...” Finch waffles. “That is to say, I consider...”

Reese interrupts his racing doubts, “Harold, stop with the obliquity. Of course we're friends. Best-friends.”

A smile alters Harold's tense expression into delight.

“So as your friend I can say this: stop talking and eat your breakfast.” Reese gives a smile large enough to show teeth and says, “I don't need to read Lewis's arcane book to tell me we have something special, Harold.”

Harold ducks his head and takes a bite of toast. “Regrettably, the prose _is_ rather sesquipedalian.”

John gives him an unamused look. “That's not even a real word.”

…


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This last one is for all who left comments. Thank you for taking the effort, you are appreciated!

Harold polishes three square meals off that day and keeps them all down. They finish with the current Number and he sleeps better that night. Despite his earlier declaration he doesn't leave the library, because honestly, he has everything he needs here.

The next day they resolve a superbly straight-forward case of white-collar crime before lunch.

“How are you getting these Numbers, Harold, if you don't leave the library?” Reese asks after shelving the Number's three books. They are mostly lounging the afternoon away with companionable small-talk.

“Party lines are somewhat easy to make.” Finch says vaguely. “Call it a contingency plan.”

“You have a lot of those. Has the Machine ever heard of texting?”

On reflection he thinks the day has gone well. He's holding to his promise to _get over things_ quite adroitly and hasn't felt an uneasy panic since yesterday morning. His neck is almost baseline and his feet looks less like a Halloween prop. Yes, he's doing fairly well.

Reese wears a restive, long-suffering expression when Harold confirms he will not be leaving the library tonight, that he is quite comfortable here, but that John is welcome, even encouraged, to depart if he so pleases.

“Please go _home_ Harold: take a hot bath, order a steak, pay utilities, manipulate stocks. Whatever it is you do after-hours.” Reese cajoles. “Take your towncar, walk, hire a cab. Just get away from here for a night.”

Harold feels affronted and condescended and lets it show. They are explicitly best-friends now, so why not? “I believe you were leaving? And I don't see how my living arrangements are really any of your concern.” Harold putters about and takes down the photos and papers affixed to the cracked glass-pane. Another successful Number for the books.

“After a while, this library is depressingly dank. If we stay here much longer you'll end up like one of your first-editions.” Reese warns with a grimace. “You know, damp, musty.” His expression may be playful but his voice is serious.

“ _Really._ ” Harold turns to him and cuts Reese with a serrated glare. “One friendly conversation and now...” He perches in his seat and moodily flips through _The Silver Chair_ still set on the desk. He thought he'd been doing well but Reese has accurately highlighted his shortcomings. He admits he isn't ready to face the outside world. He can't leave the library yet. He can't imagine restarting any part of his life considered routine like driving, dining out, or even riding in a cab.

He thinks of sitting alone in an empty house all night. One secret Reese doesn't know (but may suspect) is that his only true _home_ is the brownstone where Grace still lives. No, he is not ready to go, prefers the familiar busy halls of his library.

“Foxed.” He says eventually to Reese, a peace-offering of sorts.

Reese's brow lowers in confusion. “What?”

“That word you're looking for. Foxed: blemished, aged, damaged.”

“Now, I didn't mean it like that and you know it.” Reese objects, and seems to realize he pushed too much too soon. He hovers in the shadows and glowers. “I just want to help you.”

Harold pages through the book and the clean rasp of scritta-paper against his calloused fingertips is a balm. He's always been dismissive of stichomancy, knows it's utter nonsense, but as he reads a random line of text he reexamines that opinion. – _Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do._

He snaps the calfskin boards closed and places the book quickly aside. “I've been through worse and survived.”

…

The choice of re-entering society is taken from him the next day when they get four Numbers, seemingly unrelated. He sets Fusco, Carter, and Reese on three persons of interest, and keeps the used-bookseller for himself, obviously. Reese stares at him a long moment when Finch gives out assignments, but he just tells him, “You two should have a lot to talk about, stay in contact,” and leaves.

Harold dithers for some time before exiting his sanctuary. He takes Bear and feels only slightly guilty for the fluorescent 'service dog' vest Reese has strapped the animal in. It grants Bear access any place and Harold is relieved for the guarantee. As they round the first block he says, ostensibly to the dog, “Well done. Come on now,” and if it doubles as a self-affirmation, well, no one's there to judge him for it.

It is overcast but still feels bright to his unconditioned eyes. He's wearing more layers than the weather calls for. He nestles down into his suit like a turtle, hands safely tucked away in deep pockets; one along with Bear's leash and the other clutching a vial of Pepperspray. He may not like guns but he wasn't born yesterday.

The shop is fortuitously nearby, close enough that in another life he may have been a regular. He needs to go four blocks south and three blocks east and he's there. He'll have to navigate several crosswalks and a few construction areas but nothing too unfavorable. He calls on a trick that he'd used as a new driver. His rural childhood had hardly prepared him for busy highways, so when he'd started college at MIT on his travels he would tuck-in behind a semi-truck and focus entirely on the taillights. He could ignore everything except the guiding glow.

Harold finds a man walking no less than five dogs on a complicated leash. This person is the only pedestrian matching his pace since the man often pauses to untangle his charges. Finch focuses on the olive peacoat, does not allow his eyes to looks at faces or buildings or rushing cars. He traces the fit of the shoulder and decorative piped seams and values how it compliments its wearer's build even when off-the-rack.

The man peels off in a different direction so fast that Harold actually heels, careening like a ship at sea. He manages to totter under a checkered awning and presses his back tight against the cafe's stucco wall. He can feel creeping dread and no matter how much of a genius he is, this is apparently not something he can just out-think.

“Oh, what a gorgeous dog!” A waitress looks up from her phone and smiles at Bear. She is teenaged, tanned and curvy, nothing like Root, and he feels his tension stabilize tenuously. He tries to focus on just her, nothing else. Her face is open and her eyes are chocolate and kind as they rise to catch his. Best of all she does not come nearer. “I know not to touch service dogs. My brother, epileptic, got a Lab trained to sense seizures.” All said in a dense Jersey brogue.

“How advantageous.” Finch musters.

His concise response does not seem to deter her. She asks, “What's yours trained for, then?”

He has prepared an answer for this eventuality, something vague yet truthful. “I've had a recent health scare.”

“Sorry to hear that.” The girl chats some more about her brother but he can scarcely untwist his chest enough to answer. It's not that he isn't grateful for her distraction, far from it, but this pernicious unease cripples all civility.

When asked where he is headed, he replies with the name of the bookstore. “Oh, I love that place.” She gushes. “Mr. Vale is cool.”

Finch has been handed something valuable now and he grasps at it. “I'm having some trouble getting there.” Which is, to be fair, the absolute truth.

“I'll take you! I'm on my break and it's real close.” The teen starts off and he is just able to coax himself into step with her. She takes his limp and slowness in stride, and his esteem of her rises. Few people would ignore such an obvious defect, most at least would side-eye him. Having a brother with health issues has taught her commendable etiquette.

She walks with him to the bookshop, chatting the whole way. Harold appreciates her uncomplicated kindness. Root has disparaged normal human beings but Harold values them. The woman tells him to stop by the café sometime with his dog. As she turns away he notates her name-tag carefully. What's the use of being a hacker if you can't improve someone's credit score?

He pushes open the creaky door. He's made it, albeit with a chaperon. “Very courageous.” He chastises himself sarkily.

From a bibliophile's viewpoint, this hole-in-the-wall is incredible. It is cluttered and haphazardly arranged but positively teeming with books: first editions, collector's sets, and a dozen ancient incunabula in a glass case. With past Numbers, he's had to put on personas but no acting is required here. His tension eases with the comforting familiarity.

He browses the crowded shelves with true interest, talks with Mr. Vale at length and eventually departs, clutching a monumental find – an inscribed first-edition _Sister Carrie._ It's over one-hundred years old and like so many things in this life, its riches are concealed beneath a plain façade.

The bookshop has soothed him and he wishes he had the temerity to stop by the café and have a tea and croissant with his young acquaintance, but he is wrung-out. His feet ache and he feels the stirring of something unquiet in his throat. He clears it several times and almost jumps when Reese's quiet voice says, “Sounds like you've met some new friends today.”

He thinks at first it's come from his earpiece but looks up to find John before him. “Yes, seems so.” His larynx eases and his relief softens his sibilants to sighs.

They fall into step together. They discuss the Numbers and check in with Carter and Fusco, and soon they are back in the library's halcyon dimness. The stairs are monstrous and he's markedly lame by the time he reaches the second floor, but he scales them without pause.

He sets his new old book next to _The Silver Chair_ and admires the artful juxtaposition of its scarlet buckram against sepia leather. Although their covers are dissimilar they compliment each other and both have enduring strength.

“I didn't realize shopping for books was permitted during working hours?” Reese teases as he settles in.

“I went to reconnoiter a _bookshop_.” Harold reminds him drolly.

Reese looks critically at the blank cover. “Hope you got a good deal. Is it any good?”

“Not to my taste. Although, it's admirably controversial for its era.” Finch logs into his system and pulls up Mr. Vale's recent tax returns as easily as checking the weather. “But I was intrigued by the inscription on the flyleaf.” He cracks the old book carefully and proffers it to Reese. _–In your time of trial and travail, may these lessons on strength grant you victory. -T.H.A. Dreiser_

“A nice sentiment.” Reese agrees.

As Harold researches, John wrestles with Bear a bit and fills a bowl with kibble. “So, Harold, how did it go?”

“Very gainful. Mr. Vale is likely being targeted for his incunabula. He has a sizable collection, among them an _Odyssey_ worth upwards of seven-thousand dollars. He owns nothing notable otherwise.”

“I mean _you_. Your first time in the field since...for awhile.” Reese says with admirable tact.

Finch suppresses any enmity the prodding sparks. “I managed, but am grateful you came to meet me.”

“I'm glad to hear it.” John looks satisfied.

Harold thinks, _well, in for a penny,_ and admits “I'm struggling with crowds.”

Reese's comforting voice is hushed. “That's to be expected, after a traumatic event.”

Finch wants to confess that he's already convinced himself the event wasn't traumatic at all. A handful of days where he's been restrained and deprived, nothing more. He wants this all behind him, but the memories are a girder blocking his way forward. What he needs is a soft-reset to clear his RAM and restart again, uncorrupted. “In your experience, how long might this last?”

“The scars you can't see are the hardest to heal.” John smiles sadly and says, “If you won't go home or come to mine, why not a safehouse? Bear and I can come. I'll cook. We can watch _Terminator.”_

“I detest those films.”

“Or, _A Space Odyssey_.”

“Oh, don't be facetious.” Harold chides. “All right, there's a condo I keep in Queens.”

…

John drives them in the Lincoln and murmurs occasionally to fill the labored silence. He can tell his friend is edgy. Harold usually rests lax hands on his knees when he's in the passenger seat, but tonight they are wringing.

The unused condo is sparse aside from shelves and shelves of books. “Not so different, after all.” John sighs.

“I have to store them somewhere.” Finch responds matter-of-factly.

“You own _how_ many libraries?”

“Oh, this is my personal collection.” Finch explains. “After all, one of my original aliases is a bookseller.”

“Would that be a Harold Magpie?” Reese teases, looking in wonder at the groaning shelves.

The apartment is well stocked with nonperisherbles and comfortably furnished. “There's no TV.” Reese realizes as he scans the common space.

“It should come as no surprise that I'm not partial to 'idiot boxes'.” Harold retorts.

At the focal point of the living room where a television would normally hang is mounted a stunning painting. Unique, fascinating, even to someone with little cognition of art. At first it appears to be a lone woman with her head bowed in sorrow, but when he looks again he sees a soaring, purple-martin filling the negative space. Her carmine hair blends into the swallow's primaries like they are one being.

“I purchased it anonymously, after. I have to make sure she's comfortable.”

Reese hears grief in the voice. He understands, would himself had done anything to help Jessica. “Art is cathartic, I've heard said.”

“Thinking of taking up a new hobby?” Harold asks.

John makes pasta, nothing fancy, just boxed Bertolli and canned Ragu. They each take a hot shower which feels divine. Harold fluctuates between reading his newest book and pecking away on his laptop. They don't say much but the camaraderie is welcome, only someone who has lived alone can truly appreciate it. The soft sounds and feel of someone nearby, the warmth of another's body and soul filling a room.

Nothing happens all evening but Reese learned long ago to embrace stillness. He lingers over the hot food and makes them tea. He runs through all the commands he knows for Bear. He reads _The Silver Chair,_ pleased when Harold pulls it from his messenger bag and hands it over.

“Lewis wasn't just writing fantasy.” Reese says when he finishes the book.

Harold startles, visibly pulling his mind from the laptop. “Oh? I suppose not.” Harold gets up and refills his tea and comes to sit comfortably close. “He was devout, beyond what he could express. Metaphors, symbolism – for profound thought or feeling, these are effective expressions.”

“When you built the machine, you gave up yourself to save everyone else.” Reese says. “What does that symbolize?”

Finch frowns at the segue but he says slowly, “I always knew, on some level, it would end my way of life.”

Reese's voice lowers but loses none of its intensity. “And still you built it.”

“So I did.”

Reese watches Harold sip his tea. He looks better, still favoring his back, ginger on his feet. But the hot food and shower have done him good. “Do you have the next one?” John asks, handing over the book.

“You know, I think I do.” Finch bustles over to one of the shelves and forages around. “A generic edition, alas. _The Horse and His Boy_. ”

John quirks a smile and gently takes the paperback.

Finch excuses himself for bed, but Reese stays up reading on the couch, content beneath Grace's painting and Finch's bountiful bookshelves.

...

By the light of grayish dawn John reconstitutes pancake mix and steeps green tea. When Harold wakes, he hands him a mug and the book, already opened. John taps a line of text upon the page and says, “Good morning, Harold,” then pours batter onto a piping skillet.

Finch quirks a brow, sips the tea and leans in obediently to read.

_When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better and better._

“Good morning? Why yes, I do believe it is.”

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot thank you all enough for your comments, kudos, bookmarks, or readership, I am so glad this fandom is still alive. Thank you so much!


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